The Last Summer
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: HP & Naked Lunch AU. In 5 years at Hogwarts, Hermione has faced off against dementors & Death Eaters, but can that prepare her for working with the Snapes & the Princes for her summer job? Add hard-living Harry, and that's a full plate, indeed.


**THE LAST SUMMER**

**Chapter 1: Get a Job**

**Woolton, Liverpool. Late June, 1996**

**I: Hermione**

In the car, on her way home from the train station, Hermione's father noticed something was wrong.

"Yer look so glum, Hermione. I know ya like school, but you'll be back in a few months. What's the matter, then? Was it a hard year?"

It was a normal question for Dr. John A. Granger, D.D.S, to ask his daughter.

The trick was, Hermione had no idea how to answer it.

That bothered her.

Hermione had never been in trouble in her life, so she had never had reason to lie to her parents, before.

But, if she told her father the truth, it might put his life and her mother's life in jeopardy.

"It was a very hard year, Da."

"Well, we do get that Daily Prophet, here. Toby Snape brings them to me at the office when his wife's done with them. So's your mother and I know what goes on with the Wizarding lot. Papers say there's a war going on, and your Harry's in the middle of it. I suppose you must be, as well, then."

"Up to me neck, Da. I can't say anything more. Just that I'm safe. I'm…with Professor Snape. He'd never let anything happen to me. Or Harry, for that matter."

John sighed, heavily.

"And you can't say anything more, can you?"

"No. I can't."

"Well, Hermione, let me tell you one advantage to your father being an old man. I'm old enough to remember the War. I was eight years old in 1940, when the Blitz started. Your grandfather was already off, fighting the Gerry, and your grandmother and I were living with yer great-grandparents, in Vauxhall. It was a strange time to be alive. Because you went to school, and you did yer marketing, and to the pictures, and all, but every night, the bombers came. And you went down to the shelter, and every morning, parts of the neighbourhood, and some of your neighbours, they were gone. Blown to bits. But even then, I knew, not only did we have to carry on, but that we had to win. Because Hitler, he wasn't just another enemy. What he stood for, it was against everything right, and everything good, and everything our civilisation is built on. Now I was just a boy during the war. But I remember. And your granddad, well, he was in the Royal Marines, so you know he remembers. You don't have to give either of us details. But, if you ever need just someone to talk to, your old Da, and his old Da, we're around."

"Thanks, Da. That means a lot to me."

Hermione really wanted to tell her father the truth.

I became a soldier in a guerrilla army fighting an undeclared war against a supposedly-dead enemy. I found out that Professor Snape, you know Sev Snape, Toby Snape's son, is the Grant High Spymaster and Generallissimo of Dirty Deeds for our side, and became his Right Hand Witch.

Also his laboratory assistant.

That will look good on my application to the Merlyn School.

The past few weeks have been particularly eventful, there was a big battle, and now war's been declared, so I suppose it's not a guerrilla army now, but seeing as how Snape's cover is so deep even he can't keep how many times double an agent he is, I suppose I'm still on the hush hush James Bond end of things.

Yes, it's quite a nasty war, you know I killed a man this year?

Two or three, actually, but they were the enemy.

That might also look good on my application to the Merlyn School.

Hermione Granger, genius, war hero, super spy.

Oh, and speaking of the Snape, you know how you and Mum were worried about me being 16 and never having really dated anyone, seriously?

Not counting Viktor.

Thank the gods I never told you about Viktor.

Well, you don't have to worry about that, anymore, because I've just been burning up the sheets with mean, ugly, nasty, snarky, greasy old Snape.

With his mouthful of crookedy teeth and piratical gold crowns, and his scars, and his tattoos, bet you'd just go mad over that, your little girl and Toby Snape's son.

Now sitting by her bedroom window in her house in Liverpool, which was just beginning, after two weeks, not to seem like a foreign country, after the events of the school year, Hermione's mind began to wander.

Good old Snape.

I wonder what he's doing right now.

I wonder how I'm to make contact with him over the summer.

After all, he is my superior, and there is a war going on, and I'm sure there will be some kind of missions and duties for me to carry out.

Oh, right, Hermione.

It's all about the war, then, is it?

He's your superior, alright, the ugly, manky old git.

You're just thinking about him in a superior position, like on top of you, pumping you full of a foot or so of hard, hot…

"Moping around again, eh, Hermione!"

Hermione jumped almost a foot in the air at the sound of her father's booming voice.

"Erm, well, it's just, well, like I told you that time in the car, I had quite a school year, and I'm not used to doing nothing."

"As well yer shouldn't be. About time you got yourself a job, you'll be 17 come September. In your field as well. Anyway, I've had Toby Snape in the office today, to put a filling in one of his crowns, and he was telling me as there's an opening at that wizard shop his wife and father-in-law have going. Good news is, they want you for it. If you're there tomorrow at nine, sharp, it's yours for the asking. It'll take your mind off things, and if you're under Sev Snape as a soldier, well I imagine you're needed. Me daughter the war hero. So, as I understand it, reading the Prophet, this Voldemort character, he's rather like old Hitler, then, isn't he?"

"Pretty much, Da."

"And all us Muggles, we're the inferior race?"

"Yes."

"Well then, Hermione, you'd best get to work. And I imagine I'll be renewing me membership at the Sportsman's Club. Like Toby always says, there's no spell to stop a 12 gauge."

Hermione laughed a little, at that.

She could just picture some scrawny Death Eater tripping the burglar alarm, and facing six feet and five inches of John Granger, complete with rifle.

He'd have a belly full of both barrels before he could get his wand out.

"So, I can ring Toby and tell him you want the job?"

That was the best news Hermione had since she got off the Hogwarts Express.

"Of course, Da! Will you want to keep me wage packet? I'll bring it home, unopened."

"You're a true Scouser, Hermione Granger. No, I think I can trust you to put half in your savings account, and the other half, well, you're young. You might as well have some fun. You do know what fun is, don't you, girl?"

"I'm not sure, Da."

"That's alright. I never did, meself. That's why I'm a dentist living in a detached house in Woolton, not a bin man in Vauxhall. Not that there's anything wrong with being a bin man. But you understand, don't you, Hermione?"

"Yes, Da."

"Good. I'll call Toby, right now."

Hermione was outside Prince's Potions in Crooked Lane, Liverpool's equivalent of Diagon Alley, at 8:15, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt under her lab robes.

She paced back and forth for half an hour before the sound of jingling gypsy beads and the clop of a hoof on the cobblestones heralded the arrival of Eileen Snape and her father, Hogwarts' former Potions Master Severus Prince.

You might think Snape's appearance was eccentric, until you met his family.

Hermione had heard all about them, but she had only met Snape's father, Toby, as he and John Granger were mates from the Sportsman's Club, where they went shooting.

Eileen Snape was the grand-daughter of a veela, and it showed, she was a tall, willowy, woman with black hair and black eyes, and she was quite beautiful, but had a certain earthy quality that came from the fact she was also the grand-daughter of a satyr.

She was a self-styled gypsy, and dressed the part, but in a very classy sort of way, not in that ragbag Professor Trelawney look.

Her father, Severus Prince, who was the son of a satyr, always wore very bright colored robes. Today's were royal blue, and topped off with his customary black top hat, with holes in it for his horns, which, although not very prominent, were still horns, to come through.

He proudly wore his Alchemist's coat over top, with the gold braid on the arms to show he was a Master Magus in the Third Degree, and walked with a silver headed stick, to compensate for the fact that he had one normal human leg and one leg that was rather goatish, and ended in a hoof.

Hermione had never met these people in the flesh, and she was rather nervous.

"And she's early. Our Sev said she would be."

"Always a sign of good character. I've been many things in my life, Da, but late was never one of them."

They let themselves in, and Hermione went in the door after them.

"Good morning, Mrs. Snape, Mr. Prince. I'm Hermione Granger. I imagine you've had a recommendation on my behalf from Professor Snape, and I've brought my resume, but, I can assure you, as Professor Snape's official lab assistant, I do have a certain familiarity with many of your most popular patented potions, and I am a qualified Magus in the First Degree in Alchemy…"

"I know who you are, luv. You're John Granger's Hermione, champion sharpshooter of the Vauxhall Sportsmen's Club. And the brightest witch in your year, or so my Sev says. He can't sharrup abut you, which is nice I daresay, it's been your lifetime since our Lily was murdered. Now, this is the front counter, where we do the selling. Sometimes you'll be on front counter, everyone has a turn at it. Behind that drape is the stockroom. If you use an ingredient, mark it on the list on the Outgoing parchment. No sneaking for your own purposes, but if you really need something, we might be able to work something out. Down the stairs, are the laboratories. Me, me father and me son all have separate labs. You'll be working with Sev, most days, and if he's not about, alone in his lab. We have our own lab robes you can leave yours at home. No shorts or open shoes in the lab, and we always wear our goggles and gloves, which will be supplied to you as well. When you're on counter, you'll wear one of our purple robes which have the Prince's Potions logo on it. Here's your schedule."

Eileen Snape bustled around the shop as she spoke to Hermione, and Severus Prince went down the stairs.

Hermione looked over her schedule.

It was laid out very neatly.

She was required to come in on Mondays and Fridays all day, and on Tuesdays in the afternoon, on Thursdays the night shift and on Saturdays in the morning.

Mrs. Snape continued.

"Monday's you'll be in the lab before lunch, and on the counter after. Same with Fridays. On Tuesdays you'll be at the counter all day. Thursdays you'll be in the lab, and Saturdays will depend on what the trade is like. We'll want you here at nine, lunch is at noon, tea's at three, half days end at two, full days end at five. Night shift is from eight until midnight, shop's closed, lab's open. If we need you for overtime we'll pay you double time. Wages are one galleon and 15 sickles an hour, which is about nine pounds fifty, damn good for a student. Oh and one more thing, You can call me Ellie and my father Severus, we don't stand on fucking ceremony, do we? Today's Monday, so we'll start you behind the counter. Let me show you how the cash register works, and the price lists…"

Hermione had to look sharp, because Eileen's mind moved at a million miles a minute, and like her son, she wasn't fond of explaining things twice.

Hermione's first few hours before lunch passed without event, and then, of all people, Lucius Malfoy strolled into the shop as if God was in his heaven and all was right in the world.

As if the Department of Mysteries had never happened.

Since the war began, Hermione fell into the habit of keeping her wand in one robe pocket and a loaded Smith & Wesson 629 snub-nosed .44 Magnum in the other.

Nickel-plated, bone grip, loaded with armor piercing hollow-point bullets that she tempered in a solution of basilisk venom and wormwood.

You never can be too careful when there's a war on.

Hermione put her hand on the wand, and then thought better of it, and put her hand on the gun.

She came within a hair's breadth of drawing, and firing a bullet that would stop a troll directly into the heart of one of her most hated enemies, but then thought better of it.

With these Slytherins, things were never exactly what they seemed.

"Is there some reason you're not in jail? The Imperius Curse, again?" Hermione asked.

"No. The Dark Lord threatened me with my son's life, and kept me enslaved to him with Purple Doom. I was not responsible for my actions."

"I see."

"This is my usual weekly list of potions."

Hermione stood there, gawking.

"I don't have all day."

She unfolded the paper.

_Two large vials Prince's Vitamin Tonic, two small vials Prince's Pest Relief, one box Prince's Calming Herbal Tea, bags, not loose leaf, one large vial Bludger Brained Pain Beater, tell Severus Thursday, usual place and time._

Malfoy was a double-agent?

Malfoy?

Well he was Snape's oldest friend.

And Voldemort was Snape's oldest enemy.

Slytherins.

You needed a bloody score card just to keep the double-crosses straight.

Hermione kept her poker face.

"I'll arrange these from the stockroom for you, Lord Malfoy."

He followed her in.

In fact of the matter, he was right behind her.

"See here, what are you about, then?" Hermione insisted.

Her hand went to the gun again, and she jammed it both against the pocket of her robe, and Lord Malfoy's midsection.

He raised his hands.

"So, you carry a wand and a pistol? You never can be too sure. There's an' Elvish blade of pure mithril in the end of this cane in the opposite end from where I draw my wand. Take a deep breath and release it slowly, Granger, I'm not after your Gryffindor arse. I, and other operatives will be relaying messages and information to you in coded form while you are at the counter. No code in this list. If you'll take that Smith & Wesson out of my rib cage, I'll pass you the code parchment."

"What do you know about guns?"

"Elves are weapons-makers, Granger. We have been, since two ages before the War of the Ring. I made my sword, myself, in the family forge. Don't think that we stopped in our craft after the invention of firearms. If you want to carry a pistol, I suggest you get one of Elvish make. Or at least buy Elvish ammunition for them. You can buy bullets with potions in the tips, that way you don't have to temper them yourself, and risk poisoning."

"Can you smell the wormwood?"

"Yes."

Hermione backed off of the pistol, and Malfoy handed her a parchment from inside his cloak.

"Hide it down your knickers."

"What?"

Malfoy smiled at her, diabolically.

Gods, these Slytherins and their diabolical grins.

"You won't be searched, there. At least not in a cursory search, which is all you're likely to get in Crooked Lane. Well, go on, Granger. Or would you like me to do it for you?"

Hermione took the parchment.

"No. I'm not Ginny Weasley, am I? You'd better let her know where you stand, or you won't be standing." she snapped.

He smiled.

"She knows."

Lord Malfoy went back into the main storefront, and Hermione stuffed the parchment down the side of her knickers, rearranged her clothes and her robes, and got his potions.

He gave her an extra gold galleon.

"Lord Malfoy, you've overpaid me."

"That's a tip, Granger."

"A whole bleedin' galleon?" she squawked.

"Yes. Buy yourself a document pouch that goes under your clothes. I certainly wouldn't mind our sensitive documents getting sweet teenage pussy all over them, but some people have no sense of humour."

Malfoy tipped a wink in her outraged face, and went on his way.

By then, it was lunchtime.

Hermione had packed her lunch, and she went down to the quiet and safety of the lab on the lowest level.

Snape's.

It had the same password as his lab at Hogwarts, and smelled comfortingly of English Ovals and sandalwood oil, just like Sev.

She ate her lunch, and, at one sharp, began her usual tasks readying the laboratory for work.

At one-fifteen, just as she had his cauldron set up, Snape arrived with the sound of the cleats on his boots beating the stairs and cloud of bluish cigarette smoke, in one of his pairs of Levis and a plain black tee shirt.

"Granger." He said, walking past her to put on a lab robe and goggles

"Snape." She replied.

"To-day we'll be mixing up a batch of Prince's Power Potion Number 10. Were you informed by the operative of your duties?"

"I was. I'll have the codes memorised by the week-end."

"I expected as much."

They got right to work, and as usual, while they were working, there was no small talk, and as they sometimes did, ended up working right through tea.

Hermione did her work efficiently and without error, but her mind was going a million miles a minute.

Had it just been a fling?

Was he no longer interested in her as a woman?

As a would-be apprentice?

As a person?

As a friend?

Around four-thirty, they began cleaning up, and at five, they left, together.

Hermione's mind was awash in questions she wasn't sure if she should ask.

Snape's demeanour had not changed.

"You have the book?"

"Yes."

"Malfoy gave it to you?"

"Yes."

"Just the book, I hope."

"Well, he made me stuff it down my knickers and gave me a galleon to buy a secret document pouch so that I wouldn't have to stuff any future documents down me knickers, because he said it wouldn't do me getting pussy all over the important papers."

Snape stopped walking.

"What? He actually fucking said that to you?"

"No, he actually fucking said sweet teenage pussy."

Hermione blushed at having said such a thing, out loud.

She wasn't a big dirty talker, although, considering the effect it had just had on her, she decided talking dirty might just be something to try.

Snape lit a cigarette, furiously.

"What the fuck is he about, talking dirty to my bird! Of course, that's Luke for you. He'll get in where ever he's like as not to fit in. Speaking of which, when do your parents expect you home?"

"I have to be in by 10:30, but I'm allowed to have friends over until midnight. If I'm not going to be home for dinner, though, I have to call. Why?"

Snape exhaled, and smiled at her.

He looked just like a pirate.

"Because, Granger, doing all that work makes an old man like me sleepy. I need a bit of a lie down, and what's more, I think you need one, too."

Hermione smiled back.

"Have I ever told you how much I hate you, you nasty, mean-spirited, wicked old bastard?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. But I imagine you'll be shouting it, later."

"…yes, Mum, Professor Snape and I will be working late, so I won't be home for dinner."

"That's alright, Hermione. We're in the middle of a very tricky root canal, right now, and we've got patients waiting, I don't think we'll be home for dinner, either."

"I'm sure I'll make curfew, though."

"I'm sure you will, too."

"G'bye Mum."

"See you later on, Hermione."

Hermione hung up the phone in the Snape-Prince kitchen.

She ran through the empty kitchen, and the vacant living room, and bounded up one flight of stairs, and then a second, to the door of a tower-like room just under the owlery in the attic of the stately Victorian home owned by Severus Prince, which he shared with his daughter and son in law, and, in the summer and during holidays, his grandson.

The room was kitted out much like Snape's bedroom at Hogwarts, it had the same sort of feel to it.

Hermione, however, was not interested in the feel of the room.

She was interested in shedding her clothes and getting into bed with Snape, to get a feel of him.

He was there, waiting for her.

"I know I should try not to make it look like I'm desperate, but, fuck it, I'm fucking well desperate. I thought you and I were through."

Snape finished his cigarette and put it out.

"It's alright, Granger. I've been desperate since I was half your age. What gave you that idea?"

"I dunno."

"What kind of fool would a manky old git like me have to be to turn his back on, what did Luke say? Sweet teenage pussy?"

Hearing Malfoy say it was bad, but Snape saying it was much worse.

Hermione swallowed a yelp and bit the pillow rather than chomp through her tongue.

"You're killing me, Sev! I'm bleedin' dyin!"

She threw the blankets aside and climbed on top of Snape, straddling him.

Just because she could.

He was just about hard as he was going to get, already, the wicked old screw.

"Never mind all that fucking about with the preliminaries, we can make up for it on the next go round." Hermione panted.

"You're such a mercenary, Granger. Don't I even get a kiss before you throw yourself on me cock and start humping away?"

He ran his hands over her arse, and then her hips, and up her sides, sliding them onto her tits, where he began, quite shamelessly, to roll her nipples between his hard, calloused, nicotine-stained fingertips.

Hermione just about kissed his lips off as she got on the pony, and commenced trying to ride him all the way to Australia.

It was a scorcher of an evening.

Snape rallied to the occasion thrice, and they went through an interesting array of positions, and generally trashed the bed, knocking things off the end table, the whole nine yards.

Hermione fell asleep, and woke up with her feet where her head should have been, sprawled out across Snape's hairy thighs, with him still asleep and snoring against the inside of her knee.

She found her hand, and looked at her watch.

It was 9:00.

After she got cleaned up and dressed, Hermione descended into the Snape-Prince parlour and was horrified to find that the whole family was there, waiting on Sev.

Including a short, stocky red-haired, barrel-chested man built like an 18 wheel lorry with heavily tattooed arms in a wife beater undershirt and a kilt, with ginger hair sprouting up every which where, and a ginger handlebar moustache to match.

Toby Snape.

"Finally, lad! We've held up dinner for you! For a minute there, I thought I was gonna hafta come up there an give yer a break! But then I thought better. No use having John Granger want to kill us both! Better have her home by curfew, Sev!"

He laughed a booming laugh at his own joke.

"Not hardly, Da." Snape retorted.

"And you our Sev's 'Ermione, you ought not to keep Our Sev a secret from John. He'll be glad to hear you've not taken up with a Southerner, or some daft boy who'd put you in the club wi' his carelessness . Because, that's all I've heard about, all year. 'Ermione this, an' 'Ermione that. I know our Sev's not the easiest man in the world, but trust his Da, he were far worse when he was a boy. Just don't shoot him anyplace it'll kill him, alright?"

"Don't you think that's' a lot to ask?" Hermione had wit to quip.

Tobias laughed, raucously.

"Oh, your John Granger's, girl, to be sure! Well, then, let's eat. One side, Sev, let your old Da into the kitchen to cook. Make yourself at 'ome, 'Ermione. We'll be 'avin Shepherd's Pie. You like that, awright?"

"I like just about anything home-made, Mr. Snape. Mum and Da always do take away."

"Toby, lass. There's no Mr. Snape around here."

Snape kicked the telly, changing the channel, and sat down on the couch in the spot his father had vacated, with no small look of triumph on his face.

Hermione sat between him and his mother, and looked at the telly rather than at Eillen, or Mr. and Mrs. Prince, who were sitting on a loveseat, respectively writing on a parchment and reading a book, feigning or actually oblivious.

"Don't be embarrassed, luv. That's just Toby's way." Eileen suggested.

"Sev, I heard you changing my bleedin' programme! Change it back!"

"Not 'alf, Da!"

"Change it!"

"But you're in the fucking kitchen, for fuck's sake!"

"Well, I was fuckin' listening to it, wasn't I?"

Snape kicked the telly again, and picked up a copy of the Tattler.

"Fucking hell! That little prick, I'll strangle him! Where's the Floo powder!"

Snape threw the paper down, and grabbing a bag of floo powder, stormed up the stairs, presumably to use his private hearth.

Hermione picked up the paper.

There was a picture on the cover of Harry, with his glasses askew, dressed in only a pair of y-fronts, and a pair of Doc Martens. There was blood that wasn't his on his chest, which was already getting hairy. He was coming out of the Horntail's nest, with a bottle of Hell's Horntail firewhiskey in his hand of which two knuckles were broken.

He had a naked witch slung over his shoulders.

He was beating his chest with his free hand, and howling, and the witch was giggling in drunken anticipation, or perhaps, satisfaction.

Hermione looked at the breathless headline.

HEDONIST HARRY IN KNOCKTURN ALLEY BOOZE-SOAKED ORGY BRAWL.

Then at the first few sentences of the article.

"The recently bereaved Boy Who Lived, also the Man of the Hour in the War against You-Know-Who wasted no time behaving like a true soldier, drowning his sorrows in wine, women and ultraviolence when an impromptu sex party he was holding in one of the rooms above the Horntail's Nest, Knockturn Alley, was interrupted by three irate wizards of dubious reputation looking to retrieve three nubile young witches of dubious character from Horny Harry's lusty clutches…"

Hermione put the paper down.

"Ellie, do you think I could pick up a few hours on Friday morning?" she asked.

"I don't see why not." Eileen replied.


End file.
